Case Study: Permit.io achieves scalable, low-latency graph-powered permissions with SurrealDB

Graph-powered permissions for the AI era

Permit.io provides an authorization-as-a-service platform but faced scaling bottlenecks due to its reliance on an in-memory graph engine, which limited its ability to handle tens of millions of identity relationships for its customers. This technical ceiling prevented growth and led the company to seek a new solution from vendor SurrealDB.

By implementing SurrealDB, Permit.io leveraged its graph-native queries, multi-tenant isolation, and embedded Rust deployment to overcome their scaling challenges. The results were significant: the company broke through in-memory limits to support over 100 million identity relationships, resolved complex permissions in millisecond-speed queries, and created the fastest relationship-based access control solution in the market, all while achieving flexible cross-environment deployment.

Permit.io

Omer Zuarets

Chief Architect